


In Hands and Intentions

by fizzypunk



Series: finding equal ground [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, M/M, ShikaNeji - Freeform, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzypunk/pseuds/fizzypunk
Summary: Neji has never known gentle hands, and when he finally does, it's enough to unravel him.
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Nara Shikamaru
Series: finding equal ground [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807783
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so im taking a break from my big work that is highly ambitious of me and my tendency toward short stories... but i had to get this out of my head. neji had to go through A Lot to be a hyuuga, and i think that would be a huge thing to bear... like he's probably never felt love? the closest thing was probably his team and the overbearing love gai gave him, but beside that...? 
> 
> anyways i love neji and i love shikaneji so here's a little bit of angst :)

Shikamaru’s hands were delicate, and it never ceased to astound Neji -- no matter how many times he was held and caressed by them. These hands that cast shadows and killed and were capable of so much violence, were simply incapable of creating it of their own free will. 

His hands traced up the clothed sides of Neji’s stomach like the way spring winds graze the fields at night.

_How are you so tender with me?_

Neji doesn’t understand it, and it hurts, much like the mark that graced his forehead, but so much sharper and so infinitely more confusing. It’s frightening and soft, like pillows and lazy days and morning sun, luxuries he couldn’t have ever imagined, not as a kid, and not now. Shikamaru is soft and gentle, and Neji doesn’t know if he can reach into his mind and sift hard enough to find such a moment existing before this. He sifted before, and he wanted to throw the till away when all that came up was rubble.

Neji dipped his head into Shikamaru’s shoulder, hair falling between them, and he breathes, because that’s all he can do when just a second ago they were kissing.

_How are you so tender? How are your hands so gentle?_

They’re sitting - there’s a discarded bottle of sake pushed just off to the side, and yet its seal stayed as perfect and untouched as it had when they first sat down in the grass. They’re face to face, legs craning with their feet kicked up in the grass to either side of each other, and though it’s comfortable, something is different this time.

Neji can’t place it, and it’s frustrating to be able to sense, but to not _see_.

“Hmm, Neji?” Shikamaru whispered, wet lips at his left ear as his hand carded through his long, mocha hair. “Neji? Are you with me?”

Neji nods, forehead bumping against the soft cotton of Shikamaru’s shirt. He doesn’t want to speak, because for the first time, he thinks he doesn’t have the control to keep his voice from shaking.

Shikamaru probably hears the pauses and knows theres somthing hidden in them, and Neji doesn’t know where to go or what to do when Shikamaru’s hands find their way to his back, stroking sweet, soft circles into him. It was like a hot brand had just touched him, except it wasn’t _actually_ anything like that. It was the recoil before the burn, only to discover there would be no burn at all.

And maybe that’s what he’s aching for right now. Maybe that burn was too expected, maybe he’d rather have a reason to flinch, than to flinch without cause. And above it all, he wanted to flinch and not feel guilty for flinching --

If only Shikamaru had hurt him, he wouldn’t feel the gnawing teeth in his gut that told him _just wait,_ and even louder was _how dare you wait?_

Their legs are overlapped like clumsy children, and no, they’re anything but clumsy children. Neji feels more like a child now than he did when he was one, and he doesn’t think it’s possible to feel any more low or crumbling, except when Shikamaru speaks, and Neji can do nothing except will the tears away.

And he so often does speak, at just the right moment, with just the right words, like he does now. 

“If you want, we can stay like this.”

“Gods,” and Nejis voice breaks out in a whimper, though there was a ripping force through his chest that he had no idea existed within him that, now awakened, might never cease. 

“We can stay here, if you want.” 

There must be an angel within Shikamaru, Neji thinks, because he held him all the same. Moments before, they were kissing passionately and breathlessly. Neji’s hands were fiercely searching for Shikamaru’s, and he was demanding more and more, and then, now, here he was, shedding tears he never dared shed before - and even the thought of tears brought pain to his temples that broke out like lightning across his forehead. He flinched away again at the memories painted onto his eyelids, and it feels like a mistake.

God, the memories. There were too many of them, like crumbs that give way to avalanches.

“You know, when I was growing up, I didn’t think much about romance.”

Why was his voice so matter of fact? Holding Neji close to him, fingers carding gently down his neck and shoulders as he combed his hair, Shikamaru was there like a pillar of sincerity that spoke only of certainties.

How dare he speak so steadily of things like they were simply inherent and unavoidable truths? He was solid, a pillar, unfaltering and calm. Underneath his fingertips, Neji’s shaking hands were anything but.

“And it didn’t really bother me, cause it sort of seemed like a hassle more than anything. It seemed like a lot of squabbling.”

Neji listened, willing, this time, for his heart to retreat back into his veins and arteries and away from his ears.

“I didn’t understand others, either, when they asked me about crushes and romance and shit like that. You know, I thought Ino was so dumb for how much she wanted Sasuke, like she was brainwashed or something… I thought the whole thing was a cult.”

Neji laughed with Shikamaru, rolling his hands under his chest so he could wrap them around his waist.

“But then there’s you.”

Neji tensed, on habit. He hates that he does it, in moments that are supposed to be tender, but he can’t _stop_ it. 

(He can’t help it, and he hates it.)

“And I guess you could say it was a shock when I finally found out what they were talking about.”

Neji wants to speak so badly, but if he were to, he’d be speaking too much. Too much about how small he feels now, and the way he doesn’t know how to touch back. How to not break, how to be truly gentle...

Shikamaru leans his head into Neji’s, and he’s relaxed, and his weight seems to be Too Much and Not Enough. It's like he might get crushed, but also at the same time like he’s never felt more at home and if getting crushed was the payment, then he’d be okay to pay it.

“I… didn’t believe in it either,” Neji says, finally. His throat is dry, and he feels like any given word might turn brittle into rubble yet again. “And when I did see it, in others, it was from as far away as possible. It was from a cage and… I believed in it. I saw it everywhere, in the streets, at the Academy, and I knew it existed because so many other people felt it and spoke of it and _lived it and I…_!”

His lungs ached, out of breath, but he continued. “And I believed it wouldn’t ever…”

Shikamaru hums, and waits, because he’s good at that sort of thing.

“I thought nothing so…” 

The words _kind_ and _gentle_ and most horribly of all _tender_ dissolve on his tongue like sugar, and he can barely scrape them together enough to say it. He doesn’t want to cry again, but he can’t help it this time --

Love feels like weakness when you can’t hold back any part of yourself, and Neji sinks into Shikamaru like he’s trying to become closer than his shadow. “Nothing… _nothing_ I ever imagined, would be so kind.”

_Kind like you, tender like you, caring like you._

The hands around his shoulders, the embrace that kept Neji from feeling like this was just a dream, grew tighter, and Shikamaru kissed Neji’s neck because it was the closest thing he could kiss.

“I feel like I’ve just woken up, and I didn’t see the scars on me till now, and it’s making me sick.”

Neji’s voice used to be laced in vitriol -- every word he felt leaving his mouth was scornful, and heated, and filled with the energy of a kid stuck in a place neither heaven or hell could find, let alone salvage. It’s been years since then, but it’s only been seconds since his words started to fill with something grander. Sometimes love, sometimes sorrow, most of the time he doesn’t know.

“That’s pretty fucked up,” Shikamaru whispered.

Neji nodded. “I accepted it, too.”

Shikamaru nodded into him again, chin hooked over Neji’s shoulder. “Like fate, right? I remember that used to be your thing.”

Neji laughed, but there was no humor to be found. “It _was_ my fate.”

Neji hears the smile in Shikamaru’s voice. “It’s a good thing you don’t believe in that any more, then, isn’t it?”

_Thank gods_ , and Neji pulled away, slowly, so that they were eye to eye. He doesn’t understand why he can’t _look_ Shikamaru in the eye; when he tries he ends up crumbling all the same. “I haven’t believed in it in a long time… and yet I can’t remember if I ever stopped believing that something like this…”

He gestures between them with his right hand, and settles it on the top of Shikamaru’s thigh, tentatively, like glass that might break if pressed. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

Shikamaru sighed, but not in the way that meant he was tired or bored or put up, just saddened -- he brought his hands down from their perch on Neji’s shoulders, and gently rested them on the sharp line of his jaw.

“Hey, look at me.”

He couldn’t.

“Neji…”

He _couldn’t_ , but he did. 

Shikamaru was beautiful. He tried so hard to understate that fact, to draw less attention to himself, but when Neji looks into his eyes, and traces his gaze over the soft, pink lips he's grown intimately knowing of, it’s impossible to ignore. It’s impossible to feel not feel blinded.

And then when he looks back, it’s impossible not to feel known. His eyes are capable of seeing too much, and when SHikamaru smiles sadly, they bend ever so slightly. “What you were given wasn’t what you deserved. Not a single fucking bit of it was something _you_ deserved.”

If it didn’t feel like an avalanch, Neji would have thought it was funny how easily Shikamaru could take him apart. He could do it at will, and he could break him just as swiftly, yet he never even tried.

Except, of course, when it was to make him vulnerable -- like how he strips him down and turns him inside out just to see, to touch, but to never harm.

Neji’s face must have been flushed, because the new tears streaking down his cheeks and onto Shikamaru’s hands felt like ice.

“What adults do to children is never the kid’s fault. They’ll trick us into thinking it is, though, and we’ll just… believe.”

And _that_ was it. That was the corner stone of the avalanch, and it was removed so fast that all that came tumbling after was impossible to be avoid, to not be trampled by.

“But that’s not even the part that’s bad. That’s not even _half_ of it!” He’s not yelling, but he’s loud, and it’s like the ghost of the 12 year old he once knew took over his mind for a split second. “And I might learn to feel deserving of this, and accepting of gentle thing, and it might take years but it’s _possible_ to deserve. It’s _possible_ to accept. All of _that_ is possible!”

He’s lashing out, and its so bitter and rotten on his tongue when its said and done. His tears are hot and angry, and suddenly his breath is pent and he’s dizzy from holding it in, after letting so much of it out.

Shikamaru didn’t flinch though. His eyebrows are cast down, sad and furrowed, his eyes deep with contemplation and consideration and empathy, and his patience is present in the way he simply cradles Neji’s face.

Seconds pass, and then those fade into long minutes. The wind picked up around them, carrying the scent of flowers and wet dirt from the distance. The moon is out, but so are the clouds, and the brightness of the moon comes and goes with the wind. 

When it’s clear that Neji doesn’t have anything more to say, Shikamaru leans in and presses a sweet and simple kiss to Neji’s lips,. When they part Neji can see the wetness of his tears on Shikamaru, little glints under the night sky.

“If that’s what _is_ possible, then what _isn’t_?”

Neji closed his eyes, and took in as steady a breath as he could. He had no more tears in him. All of it was replaced with heaviness and exhaustion. He wanted nothing more than to collapse, to sleep, and to stop thinking.

He smiles, bitter and longing. “I might not be able to be as… gentle.”

“What do you mean, like you might… hurt me?”

“Not like that… not intentionally. My hands… they’re too rough.”

_I’m too rough_.

“I don’t think it works that way, Neji. It’s not a matter of _slipping up_ or being--”

His voice was loud again -- not like a shout, but like words spoken in a temple “But that’s the thing, Shikamaru -- they can. They can react. I feel them guard, and go rigid, and become so fucking stiff that I’m worried I wont know what to do with them!”

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing, because I know you’re not saying you’re going to hurt me. You’re not going to accidentally punch me, or tear me apart, or, I don’t know, Byakugan me or anything… and then again, even _if_ you were to, I don’t think you’d get very far.”

Neji smiles at that, because he’s probably right. 

“It’s just like your hands _work_ … and mine dont. I don’t know how to touch like that.”

“You already do, Neji.”

“But it’s not just… it’s because I can’t _do_ that. I’ve touched so many things that end up breaking, and it’s…

“Scary?”

Neji nods, averting his eyes when he notices the glint in Shikamaru’s.

Shikamaru can always _hone_ in, and it’s another reason to be frightened of this man, if he were worth being frightened of at all. “It’s like what you said earlier, isn’t it? When you said the words _kind_ and _gentle_. You mean like that, don’t you?”

There’s nothing physical about it, and Neji has to ceed to that undeniable truth once it’s stated, clear as day. “I think I might try and touch you like you touch me, and I’ll break you…”

Shikamaru’s left thumb comes to trace Neji’s lips, callus to soft skin.“I could do the same, though, don’t you think?”

Neji fidgets, shoulders dropping, tilting his head forward with his hair cascading in his wake. “Technically…”

“No, I mean it,” and Shikamaru takes his left hand and uses it to push back the curtain of hair that started to form, to hold it back. “Don’t you think that one day it might be possible, and that I might break you?”

“Shikamaru…”

“I need you to answer that.”

“Yes… yes it’s possible.”

“Then do you trust me? Do you trust to be in my hands, in _my_ intentions? Do you trust me not to ‘break’ you?”

“Yes. Yes, without question.”

“Then I trust you too. I trust these hands,” and he drops both his own hands to hold Neji's between their bodies, with all the strength he has. “And I trust that they can handle me with care.”

“What if they don’t?”

_What if the trust is misplaced? Failure isn’t an option, until it is..._

“Then I’ll forgive you.”

It’s infuriating, it’s almost unbearable -- to meet every worry and cynicism he has with calmness and faith. “What if they slip? What if my best intentions still hurt you?”

“Then I’ll still forgive you.”

This time, Neji didn’t have anything else to say. There wasn’t another _what if_ hanging on his tongue.

So instead of sinking, he decided that if he couldn’t understand it all, or accept it all, then he was at least going to express it all.

“I… also thought that this wouldn’t happen. When you said earlier, that you didn’t believe in love, I didn’t think I’d ever feel love either…”

The word Shikamaru actually said was _romance_ , but Neji knew better. It’s nice to see Shikamaru blush, to flounder this time, the way he always does when he gets _too_ much attention. 

“But...”

“But I found it. And I feel it.”

Shikamaru averts his eyes, skin pinkening even under the moonlight. “Stop, or else you’re gonna make me feel special...”

This time, Neji leaned in, wanting to taste the vulnerability and swallow it all up. “Shikamaru,” he said, hot against his lips as they grazed each other.

“I love you too,” he returned, his eyes looking up from their clumsily entangled hands when Neji leaned in to kiss him.

Shikamaru tumbled backwards with the weight of Neji, Neji’s momentum hitting suddenly and passionately all encompassing -- like warmth; and there’s no all consuming _fire_ when he pins his hands down to the cool grass. Nothing about this is about to burn out or turn all in its wake into char and ember, or broken pieces of glass. 

Neji slotted himself between Shikamaru’s legs, and took his left hand to support himself over Shikamaru while the other stayed with his fingers intertwined.

It’s consuming like oxygen -- like the first breath of fresh air during a storm, or the one right afte completing a mission and realising that despite it all, you survived.

And the both of them smiled, like they knew this, and they tumbled into each and every gentle touch.


	2. Chapter 2

_How are you so gentle with me?_

_I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense, because I can barely tolerate being gentle with me. It is not easy, and even more importantly, it is not necessary. I do not need anything gentle in order to live, to function, or to be Hyuuga._

_To Hyuuga, gentle is simply a word in a book. It’s something that is said, not done._

_Gentle hands did not cradle my head or hands or knees when training when awry. Gentle hands did not forgive the tears of misunderstandings when I overheard things I was not supposed to, and when they formed seals, they were not gentle when my head burst into lightning and misery._

_Gentle hands did not treat me with distrust, and were not the ones that reminded me of the bondage I was born with._

_Gentle hands were a mockery -- our clan secret, a huge joke in the form of lethal precision and high expectations._

_Gentle Palm? Perhaps that was the only gentle I knew and was comfortable with._

_That was before I met you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i decided to split this up and make this afternote, as opposed to keeping it as a piece added to the end of the story. again thank u for reading :>

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!!  
> also if you wanna follow me i'm on tumblr as [fizzypunk](https://fizzypunk.tumblr.com/) i'd like to say hi! :D


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